A Guide to Cybersecurity for Globally Distributed Teams
Today, more and more businesses are warming up to the concept of building globally distributed teams. However, one of the primary concerns that some organisations still have regarding offshoring their processes is security.
Decades of low-quality outsourcing and exaggerated horror stories about offshore security breaches have led to businesses questioning the security of their confidential data with their remote team. And therefore, to mitigate security risks and protect sensitive data, companies must know and implement fundamental cybersecurity measures when working with their teams — offshore or otherwise.
In this piece, we’ll walk you through some data security practices that you can implement when working with globally distributed teams.
1. Find the most secure model for your business
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a ‘data security practice’. However, this is one of the most important steps that any business looking to build a globally distributed team must take.
When you’re considering hiring a global workforce, you have a few different options, such as hiring freelancers, outsourcing your development processes, or building an offshore team.
On the one hand, while going the freelancer or outsourcing route may reduce your operational costs, it will also expose your business to significant security risks. And that’s because outsourcing agencies are third-party vendors who hire developers on a contract basis. These developers belong to the outsourcing agency and are not a part of your organisation. The developers you hire will be simultaneously working for other clients, sometimes even your competitors. In such a scenario, ensuring that there is no security breach is next to impossible.
On the other hand, building a dedicated offshore team means hiring a handpicked group of individuals who are 100% part of your organisation. They are permanent, full-time employees who are just like your local team, except that they are based elsewhere. And because they only work for you, implementing and monitoring cybersecurity processes becomes that much easier.
At The Scalers, we help organisations from across the globe set up their own offshore development team in Bangalore, India. We take care of all the recruitment, administration, legalities, and cybersecurity, so businesses can focus on scaling without worrying about a data breach.
2. Secure all applications and devices
When building a globally distributed team, you must ensure that your IT infrastructure is configured correctly to ensure the cybersecurity of operations. Some ways to do this include:
Encrypting and installing firewalls
Installing security patches and updating the security software on all endpoints provides personal firewall, applicational control, antivirus protection, and antispyware protection. This, in turn, ensures that hackers cannot access IDs and passwords or use official systems as a point of entry to the company’s systems and servers.
Similarly, ensure that all computer and external hard drives are encrypted to protect worker endpoints from unwanted access. Endpoints must also be equipped with remote wipe capabilities so that if the device is lost or stolen, all data can be erased.
At The Scalers, we encourage our partners to conduct routine checks of encrypted data and invest in advanced firewalls to ensure that their trade secrets are well protected.
Read the full article at: https://thescalers.com/a-guide-to-cybersecurity-for-globally-distributed-teams/
